SELECTIVE MECHANIZATION OF RICE CROP IN UTTAR BASTAR KANKER OF CHHATTISGARH TO REDUCE THE COST OF CULTIVATION

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1 International Journal of Agricultural Science and Research (IJASR) ISSN(P): ; ISSN(E): Vol. 7, Issue 3, Jun 2017, TJPRC Pvt. Ltd. SELECTIVE MECHANIZATION OF RICE CROP IN UTTAR BASTAR KANKER OF CHHATTISGARH TO REDUCE THE COST OF CULTIVATION ATUL. R. DANGE 1, BIRBAL SAHU 2, R K NAIK 3, D. SALAM 4, P. RAHNGDALE 5 & S. MARKAM 6 1,4,5,6 Subject Matter Specialists, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kanker, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India 2 Senior Scientist, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kanker, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India 3 Scientist, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kanker, Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India ABSTRACT Paddy is the principal crop and the central plains of Chhattisgarh are known as rice bowl of central India. It is a labour intensive crop and requires about 800 to 900 labour-hours for cultivating one hectare of land. Of different field operations, seeding through seed drills, transplanting, weeding through mechanical weeder and harvesting together consume major labour force and if these are managed timely and efficiently by the farmers, could earns good profit. To access the performance of machines used in cultivation of rice an experiment was conducted at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kanker. For mechanical transplanting a self propelled rice planter and line sowing under wet conditions with an eight row paddy drum seeder whereas for weeding manually operated weeder and a self propelled paddy reaper for harvesting of paddy were also evaluated. An eight row self propelled paddy transplanter was found to be very effective for timely transplanting in a large area. Its average field capacity was ha/hr and cost of transplanting almost 61 % less compared to manual transplanting. Use of manually operated 8 row drum seeder tested was most effective for line sowing of sprouted paddy in puddled condition. It reduces the cost of cultivation by saving 58 % seed compared to farmers practice. It was observed that the average cost of mechanical transplanting with an eight row self propelled rice transplanter %, mechanical weeding with ambica paddy weeder was 51.15% and mechanical harvesting with a self propelled vertical conveyer reaper was 59.76% less as compared to manual transplanting, weeding and harvesting operations respectively. A Review Article KEYWORDS: Mechanization, Reduce, Transplanter, Productivity & Cost of Cultivation Received: Apr 01, 2017; Accepted: Apr 16, 2017; Published: Apr 18, 2017; Paper Id.: IJASRJUN20173 INTRODUCTION The farming a decade ago was input intensive amassing its strength from the number of working hands which were available due to the high rates of unemployment and illiteracy. With declining farm labour availability and their wages, farm operations have turned expensive calling for mechanical intervention. The overall level of mechanization in farming is below 50 percent in the case of majority of the farming operation in India. The traction machines can produce a far higher output in much shorter time frame depending on their size and rated capacity. Besides the use of machines helps reduce the drudgery of farm work that distracts educated youth from farming (1). editor@tjprc.org

2 22 Atul. R. Dange, Birbal Sahu, R K Naik, D. Salam, P. Rahngdale & S. Markam Often the farmers face the problem of shortage of labours during the peak sowing, transplanting, weeding and harvesting season. Due to this timely complete operation is a very difficult. It has been reported that delay in transplanting by one and two months has a yield reduction of about 25 to 70 percent. Due to late transplanting the turn-around time available for the next crop is very small which again affects the yield of the subsequent crop. The following table 1 gives the operation wise labour requirement in rice cultivation (6) Table 1: Labour Requirements in Rice Cultivation Sr No Operation Percentage of Labour Requirement 1 Puddling 11 2 Transplanting 38 3 Weeding 19 4 Harvesting 20 5 Threshing 12 Considering the above aspects, the present study as an on-farm testing in rice cultivation was planned at farmer s field. An experiment was conducted in puddled field to evaluate the performance of 8 row self-propelled rice transplanter for transplanting of seedling and direct sowing of sprouted paddy seeds through manually operated 8-row paddy seeder. Whereas for mechanical weeding ambika paddy weeder and harvesting is carried out with a sel-propelled vertical converyer reaper for minimizing the labour cost in order to reduce the cost of cultivation. MATERIALS AND METHODS The trails were conducted at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kanker during kharif season in the year2014, 2015 and The experiment consisted of evaluation of field performance of the mechanical transplanter, drum seeder and mechanical weeders in comparison with manual transplanting and weeding. For this an eight row self propelled paddy transplanter was used for transplanting sampling (14 to 17 days old), drum seeder for soaked seeds in puddled field, mechanical paddy weeder (ambika weeder) for weeding and a self propelled vertical conveyer reaper for harvesting operation. The detailed technical specifications of self propelled eight row paddy transplanter used are shown in Table 1. Speed of operation, width of working, total time required to cover the area and the fuel consumption were recorded. The same rice variety Maheshwari was selected for the all trails. Table 2: Technical Specifications of an Eight Row Self Propelled Paddy Transplanter Parameters Make Redland Type Riding type Overall dimensions (LxWxH), cm 250x234x118 Weight, kg 332 Engine specifications 4 hp single cylinder Air cooled, Diesel engine No of rows, 8 Row spacing, cm 22 Hill spacing, cm 16 No of sampling per hill 3 Mechanical transplanting requires a special type of seedlings raised on mat type nursery. Raised beds of 58 cm length, 28 cm width and 19 cm height were prepared. Polythene sheet of 28 cm width and 50 micron thickness was used. Soil was sieved and mixed with equal proportion of sand and farm yard manure and spread over the polythene sheet to a depth of 1.9 cm. Sprouted seeds were spread uniformly on the polythene sheet and pressed gently. They were covered with Impact Factor (JCC): NAAS Rating: 4.13

3 Selective Mechanization of Rice Crop in Uttar Bastar Kanker of 23 Chhattisgarh to Reduce the Cost of Cultivation paddy straw and watered for four days. After the fourth day paddy straw was removed and seedlings were grown normally by regular watering. After 15 days the seedlings mats were fed to the mechanical self propelled paddy transplanter. In case of manual transplanting method, paddy nursery was raised following the recommended package of practices. Transplanting was done using mechanical transplanter by running length wise of the field on the puddled and levelled land with water level in the field kept up to 2 cm only to avoid floating of the seedlings (Figure 1). Observations on speed of operation, depth of placement of seedlings, number of seedlings per hill, number of missed hills, time taken for turning, time taken for loading of seedling mat on to the transplanter, total time taken for transplanting, total area covered, width of coverage and fuel consumption for the transplanting operation were recorded. Figure 1: Paddy Seedling Transplanting with Eight Row Paddy Transplanter Other method of line sowing in puddle field is with paddy drum seeder. This is a manually operated machine suitable to sow pre-germinated paddy seeds in rows. It consists of fibre drums, a metallic axle, a main frame and a handle (figure 2). It is made of M.S. pipe, M.S. rod and plastics lugged wheel. The drums have holes through which seeds are dropped, while the machine is pulled backward on the prepared field. It has 8 rows with spacing of 20 cm between two consecutive rows. The technical detail of drum seeder is given in table 2. Table 3: Technical Specifications of Manually Operated Paddy Drum Seeder Particulars Dimensions Power source Hand operated Number of drum 4 Number of rows 8 Shape of the seed drum Hyperboloid Diameter of drum, mm 200 Number of holes 36 Row spacing, mm 200 Diameter of lugged drive wheel, mm 600 Diameter of the opening, mm 9 Volume weight of seed drum, gms 600 Material used PP CP Material of handle GI Pipe Operating speed, km/hr 1 Weight of unit, kg 10 editor@tjprc.org

4 24 Atul. R. Dange, Birbal Sahu, R K Naik, D. Salam, P. Rahngdale & S. Markam Figure 2: Paddy Line Sowing with Drum Seeder and Germinated Seeds Mechanical weeding was carried out with the help of ambika paddy weeder, 35 days after transplanting. The performance of weeder was evaluated in the field as per RNAM test codes. The field observations i.e. speed of operation, weeding index and field capacity were recorded and analyzed. Figure 3: Schematic View of Ambika Weeder & Mechanical Weeder in Operation The harvesting of matured rice crop was carried out with help of a self propelled vertical conveyer reaper. The detail technical specification of the paddy reaper is shown in Table 3. Table 3: Specification of Self Propelled Vertical Conveyer Reaper Sr. No. Parameter Specifications 1 Make Kerala Agro Machinery Corporation Ltd (KAMACO), Kerala 2 Model KR Engine Single cylinder 4 stroke Petrol start, kerosene run 4 Dimensions (L W H) Fuel & tank capacity (lits) Kerosene-3.5 lits Petrol-0.5 lits 6 Power (kw) Weight (kg) No of rows 4 9 Field capacity (ha/hr) No. Gears 3 11 Type of Cutting device Reciprocating knife bar 12 Working width (cm) Effective height of cutting from ground level (cm) Forward speed of machine (km/hr) 3.5 Impact Factor (JCC): NAAS Rating: 4.13

5 Selective Mechanization of Rice Crop in Uttar Bastar Kanker of 25 Chhattisgarh to Reduce the Cost of Cultivation RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Paddy transplanting was carried out using self propelled eight row paddy transplanter. Based on the field testing conducted during kharif season in the year 2014, 2015 and It was observed that the number of seedlings transplanted per hill was 3 to 4 per hill and the depth of seedlings transplanted about 5-6 cm in case of mechanical transplanting. The average actual field capacity of the self propelled eight row transplanter was ha/h with a field efficiency of 78% at an average operating speed of 1.29 kmph (Table 4). It took 5.19 h to transplant 1 ha area and the fuel consumption was 6.5lits/ha. The working performance of the self propelled eight row paddy transplanter was found to be satisfactory. The labour requirement was found to be 3 man days per hectare compared to man days of labour per hectare in manual transplanting of paddy. Thus, it saved 26 man days of labour per hectare. respectively Table 4: Field Performance of Eight Row Self Propelled Paddy Transplanter Sr No. Parameters Date of transplanting 28/07/ /08/ /07/ Speed of operation, km/hr Actual Hill spacing, cm Fuel consumption, lit*hr Time required to transplant 1 ha area 5 hr 12 min 5 hr 18 min 5 hr 29 6 Theoretical field capacity, ha/hr Field capacity, ha/hr Field efficiency,% Labour requirement, man-days/ha 4# 4# 4# 10 Cost of mechanical transplanting, Rs/ha *average fuel 60/lit and # Labour charges per Rs163/day and Rs166/day for the year 2014, 2015 and 2016 The effective field capacity of paddy drum seeder with seeding rates of kg/ha was 0.14 ha/hr. However, field capacity of hand broadcasting was 0.20 ha/hr. The average plant population, after 35 days in the drum seeder was 328 and 308 Nos/m respectively. In the drum seeder plot, the distance between rows was 20 cm, however the distance between hill to hill along the rows varied with the seeding rate. On an average the hill to hill distances were found 4.2 cm in drum seeder. In conventional hand broadcasting, the seeds were scattered at random making no specific rows, so that, the operation of rotary type weeder is not possible for weed control. The study revealed use of drum seeder helps in timely sowing of crop resulting in more yield, saves costly seeds (requires kg seeds/ha), reduces labour requirement and cost of sowing, line sowing by drum seeder reduces weeding cost. Table 5: Field Performance of Mechanical Weeder (Ambika Weeder) Sr No. Particulars Effective width,cm Weeding efficiency, % Tiller damaged, % Field capacity, ha/hr Labour hours required per ha Cost of operation, Rs/ha Rs 1256 Rs 1141 Rs 1328 Weeding efficiency is the percent removal of weed per hectare. The average weeding efficiency was found % in single row ambika weeder. Whereas average field capacity of ambika paddy weeder was found ha/hr (table 5). editor@tjprc.org

6 26 Atul. R. Dange, Birbal Sahu, R K Naik, D. Salam, P. Rahngdale & S. Markam Whereas with manual weeding, it was observed only ha/hr. Weeding, which is a labour intensive and time consuming operation could be minimize using mechanical means. The cost of weeding with mechanical weeder was found almost half as compared to manual weeding. Table 6: Performance of Self Propelled Vertical Conveyer Reaper Sr. No. Parameters Crop Paddy Paddy Paddy 2 Area Harvesting date 12/11/ /11/ /11/ Fuel consumption (l/ha) Average speed of harvesting (km/hr) Actual field capacity (ha/hr) Field efficiency (%) Total Cost Rs.1152 Rs 1184 Rs1187 In kharif season paddy crop was harvested using vertical conveyor power reaper. With working width of reaper 1.2 m and average speed of harvesting were 2.3 km/hr, the performance of reaper was found satisfactory. An average field capacity of reaper was found ha/hr. Average fuel consumption required for per hectare of paddy harvesting with reaper was 6.2 litres (Table 6). Table 7: Operation Wise Cost of Rice Cultivation for Particular Manual Operations Particulars Date of transplanting 28/07/ /08/ /07/2016 Labour hour required per ha transplanting, hrs Average hill to hill spacing, cm Cost of transplanting, Rs Labour hour required per ha weeding, hrs Cost of weeding Labour hour required per ha weeding, hrs Cost of harvesting Figure 4: Comparative Cost Economics of Manual and Mechanical Operation for Rice Cultivation From the graph (figure 4), it was observed that the average cost of mechanical transplanting with an eight row self propelled rice transplanter %, mechanical weeding with ambica paddy weeder was 51.15% and mechanical Impact Factor (JCC): NAAS Rating: 4.13

7 Selective Mechanization of Rice Crop in Uttar Bastar Kanker of 27 Chhattisgarh to Reduce the Cost of Cultivation harvesting with a self propelled vertical conveyer reaper was 59.76% less as compared to manual transplanting, weeding and harvesting operations respectively. Table 8: Field Observations of Paddy Crop Methods of Sowing Number of Effective Plant Average Hill Panicle Grain Yield, Tillers, Nos/m 2 Height, cm Spacing, cm Length, cm qt/ha Manually transplanted Transplanted with eight row transplanter Drum seeder Broadcasting manually Figure 5: Rice Yield (qt/ha) Recorded in Different Methods The grain yield was determined and has been presented in Table 8. The data showed maximum grain yield qt/ha with use of mechanical transplanted then qt/ha manually transplanted rice. The lowest yield was observed with manually broadcasted rice in puddled condition is qt/ha in sprouted rice broadcasted manually (figure 5). CONCLUSIONS Under current stage of rice farm mechanization, the farm operations which involve mechanical power include only land preparation and threshing, while other farm operations are employed entirely by human power. Under these conditions, farmers should be encouraged continuously to adopt mechanical power technologies in order to carry out farm operations timely and to make rice production process more productive and efficient. REFERENCES 1. Anonymous. (2016). Agriculture Today, The National Agriculture Magazine: Anonymous. (2013). Department of Agriculture Chhattisgarh, 3. Anonymous. (2011). Department of Agriculture, 4. Anonymous. (2010). Survey of Indian Agriculture, Hindu publication. 5. Chaudhary V. and Varshney, B.P (2003). Influence of seedling mat characteristics and machine parameters on performance of self-propelled rice transplanter. Agricultural mechanization in Asia, Africa and Latin America. 34: Chaudhary Ved Prakash and Varshney, B. P. (2003). Performance evaluation of self-propelled rice transplanter under different puddle field conditions and sedimentation periods. Agril. Mechanization in Asia, Africa and Latin America (AMA), (34): editor@tjprc.org

8 28 Atul. R. Dange, Birbal Sahu, R K Naik, D. Salam, P. Rahngdale & S. Markam 7. Manjunatha, M.V., Masthana B.G., Reddy, S.D. Shashidhar and Joshi V.R. (2009). Field performance evaluation of vertical conveyor reaper. Karnataka J. Agric. Sci., 22(1): Makoto Hoki (1977). Farming Operations and Labor Requirements for Paddy Cultivation in Sarawak, East Malaysia, South East Asian Studies, 15(3): Singh T.P. (2008). Performance of No-till for establishment of rice and its comparison with drum seeder and conventional method. Technical Sciences: Singh S. and Hensel O. (2012). On farm research (OFR on transplanting paddy: a Best-Bet prototype for drudgery reduction. International Journal of Agriculture: Research and Review. 2(4). 11. Singh V., Mahendra Kumar R. and Viraktanath B.C. (2012). Selective mechanization in rice cultivation for energy saving and enhancing the profitability. Rice Knowledge Management Portal (RKMP), Research Theme. Directorate of Rice Research. Rajendranagar Tripathi, S. K., Jena, H. K. and Panda, P. K.(2004). Self-propelled rice transplanter for economizing labour, Indian Farming, (54): Singh, G. (2002). Equipment to ensure timeliness. The Hindu Survey of Indian agriculture, Singh, G., A.P. Chaudhary and Clough, D.S. (1988). Performance evaluation of mechanical reapers in Pakistan. Agril. Mechanization in Asia, Africa and Latin America 19: Impact Factor (JCC): NAAS Rating: 4.13